Modern gas turbines, especially aircraft engines, must satisfy the highest demands with respect to reliability, weight, power, economy, and operating service life. In the last decades, aircraft engines were developed especially in the civil sector, which fully satisfy the above demands and have achieved a high degree of technical perfection. In the development of aircraft engines, among other things, the material selection, the search for new suitable materials, as well as the search for new production methods play a decisive roll.
The most important materials used these days for aircraft engines or other gas turbines are titanium alloys, nickel alloys (also called super alloys) and high strength steels. The high strength steels are used, for example, for compressor housings and turbine housings. Titanium alloys are typical materials for compressor parts. Nickel alloys are suitable for the hot parts of the aircraft engine. Primarily the investment casting as well as the forging are known from the state of the art as production methods for gas turbine components of titanium alloys, nickel alloys or other alloys. All highly loaded or stressed gas turbine components, such as components for a compressor for example, are forged parts. Components for a turbine, on the other hand, are typically embodied as investment cast parts.
For reducing the weight of gas turbine components, it is already known from the state of the art, to utilize metal matrix composite materials (so-called MMC materials). In such MMC materials, high strength fibers are embedded in the metal material. The production of gas turbine components of such MMC materials is, however, complicated and thus expensive.